2. Why is not more talk about what really is hurting marriage, and hurting children? In my opinion, this is fact that so many Catholic girls and other girls in society have babies and don’t not get married. I was visiting Los Angeles in state of California this summer with wife and I happened to visit the beautiful Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral. There was preparations for baptism to occur shortly. Maybe 150 parents stood in long line with their little ones waiting for baptisms, registering themselves. I took nice photographs of all the happy peoples. Well, I started talking to one of the ladies organizers who was not Mexican like almost all the mothers and children. More than half the children were like 4, 5, 6, 7 years old. Not too many little infants. At first, I think to myself that this is first communion. But no, baptism. The ladies registering tell me that most of the parents were not married, and just look around. Where are the fathers? Of course, there were some, covered with their tattoos and others looking not too much like gangsters in church. But really, shouldn’t our religion have more upset about encouraging the young peoples having sex to get married? This is not a message that the young peoples having sex will listen to bishops in dress talking about. There needs to be really married couples saying that marriage is really good. These young girls with all the kids think like America is what you see on soap operas on television. This is the threat to marriage. This is the hardship for all the little children. No marriage, no fathers. I saw some of the gays there. They were helping to organize the long lines, registerstration the peoples, and sing in the choir. They were not destroying marriage.

But the wait was worth it.

Over time, with the help of prayer, the good example of others, and the grace of the sacraments, I have come to a different point of view.

Now, I understand that when the Church tells me that my desires and behavior are displeasing to God, it’s not because the Church hates me. It’s because of love, and a desire to tell me the truth so that I may be the person that God created me to be. “Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten” (Rev 3:19).

I’m still broken, but God has patched me and repaired me over and over again. Someday, maybe, I’ll be fixed.

I’m sorry that you’ve given up on the Church. Please keep in mind that God will never give up on you.

I give up with the Catholic Church. I am not living the rest of my life listening to things like this. Life is about love, happiness, caring, and all the other things you say are subjective and life is short. I have been in a caring and loving partnership for 16 years and we are getting married in December in NYC. I cant wait. We will not be coming to the Catholic Church ever again. Tolerance, Acceptance and normal ideas about religion are found elsewhere. You profess and believe sexual repression and hateful repression is the way. It is not. Your church is no longer my church.

The moral doctrines of the Church rest on Revelation and natural law. So, we look to see what God has revealed to us in Sacred Scripture, in the Tradition of the Church (i.e., what has always been taught by the Church), in the nature of the human person, and interpreted for us by the teaching office of the Church (i.e., the pope and the bishops who are in communion with him). So, in Sacred Scripture we look to the Ten Commandments, the ethical norms taught in the Old Testament, the preaching of Christ, the letters of Paul, taken as a whole. In Tradition, we look to the teachings of the Fathers of the Church (the great bishops and theologians of the early Church), the Councils, and the bishops throughout history. If a moral norm has been taught to us in this way, we consider it to be the definitive teaching of Christ, and nobody is authorized to change it.

When it comes to sexual morality, the core teaching of the Church is that the proper setting for sexual activity is only between a man and a woman who are bound to each other in the covenant of marriage. Any sexual act other than that fails to satisfy the proper purpose of human sexuality, is contrary to the nature of the human person and the will of God, and is thus gravely immoral. This norm applies not just to persons of the same sex, but to everyone. This is taught by Sacred Scripture, has been the universal and perpetual teaching of the Tradition of the Catholic Church, and has been reaffirmed repeatedly and authoritatively by the teaching office of the Church. We consider it, to use the technical theological term, “irreformable” (i.e., unchangeable).

Just to put it in context, by the way, the teaching of the Church also unequivocally condemns acts of violence against innocent persons, and specifically has denounced such acts committed against homosexual persons.

If you want to understand this more clearly than I have explained it, and also to see what the Church teaches about the support that is offered to persons with same-sex attraction, then I recommend that you read the document from the US Bishops, “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination“.

I am not brushing anything aside, and hardly redefining the definition of Christianity. Jesus talked about accepting and loving thy neighbor. Jesus’ teachings are quite applicable in the post-modern age we live in. What has become outmoded is the continued discrimination against gays and lesbians by the church and their basic unwillingness to include everyone in the Catholic community.

To face discrimination in a place of worship is an odd oxymoron. As a powerful and important religious institution, the church could effect a change and instead treat moral codes as more important than people who are being killed, beaten, bashed and bullied simply for who they are. This seems terribly out of step with the teaching of Christ.

The Catholic Church is on the wrong side of this issue and seems to historically be unwilling, until dragged by public opinion, into accepting the laws of the land in which they operate.

There are Catholic gays and lesbians who could use the support they everyone else takes for granted from the church. To sanctify their marriages and legitimize their lives.

Thanks again for confirming the point of the post.